The primary aim of damages for a breach of contract is to compensate the plaintiff for the loss suffered, not to punish the defendant.

MANMOHAN, J.

I.A. 12477/2016

1. Present application has been filed under Order 7 Rule 11 CPC by the applicant/defendant-bank for rejection of the plaint.

2. Learned counsel for applicant/defendant-bank stated that the crux of the plaintiff's cause of action was unauthorized withdrawal of Rs.3,60,00,000/- from her account maintained with the applicant/defendant-bank. He stated that a bare perusal of the statement of account filed by the plaintiff herself along with the plaint would reveal that on 29th September, 2009, there were three investments of Rs.1,50,00,000/-, Rs.1,50,00,000/- and Rs.60,00,000/- made on behalf of the plaintiff with three Mutual Fund Houses, i.e., Fortis Flexi Debt, Franklin Templeton and HDFC, respectively. He pointed out that the same statement of account filed by the plaintiff further reflected that all these investments in the mutual funds had either matured or were redeemed by the plaintiff prematurely. He stated that the statement of account also reflected that all these redemptions were duly credited in the account of plaintiff along with profits generated on the mutual funds. Consequently, according to learned counsel for the plaintiff, the plaintiff had invested funds in the mutual funds which she had redeemed with profits.

3. He further submitted that the claim of the plaintiff was liable to be rejected for the reason that the plaintiff had not even disclosed these redemptions and earning of profit in the entire plaint and had tried to mislead this Court by stating that there had been an embezzlement of funds from her account.

4. He submitted that the present plaint was barred by limitation. He stated that the investments made by the plaintiff in the mutual funds were in the year 2009 and all the redemptions were made by the plaintiff from 11th July, 2011 till 16th October, 2012. Therefore, according to him, the cause of action, if any, in favour of the plaintiff, arose on the last date of such redemptions, i.e., 16th October, 2012, whereas the present plaint had been filed on 3rd December, 2015, which was clearly barred by limitation as it was filed beyond the period of three years.

5. Learned counsel for the applicant/defendant-bank lastly stated that the plaintiff had also filed two similar suits against Mutual Fund Houses, i.e., CS (OS) No. 539/2015 and CS (OS) No. 538/2015 and one of the said suits, i.e., CS (OS) No. 539/2015 had already been dismissed by a Coordinate Bench of this Court on the ground of limitation.

6. Per contra, learned counsel for the plaintiff stated that the plaintiff had never reinvested and was not even conscious about the alleged transactions. He stated that the applicant/defendant-bank was alleging reinvestment by the plaintiff without producing the records for alleged reinvestment which they knew were forged and fabricated.

7. He stated that the redemption/switch over requests made prior to 7th October, 2015 were forged as the debit entries in the statement of account, supplied by the applicant/defendant-bank were admittedly without supporting vouchers and therefore the present application was liable to be rejected.

8. He stated that the applicant/defendant-bank was in the habit of making false documents to show the presence and knowledge of the plaintiff. He stated that the applicant/defendant-bank had produced false documents dated 5th March, 2010 and 9th March, 2010 stating that the "customer signed in presence of the officials of the defendant", which meant that the plaintiff was present in the bank at the time of transaction; whereas on 5th March, 2010 the plaintiff was in Dubai as evident from the seals of Dubai Airport Immigration showing entry of the plaintiff on 5th February, 2009 and departure on the 3rd April, 2010.

9. Learned counsel for the plaintiff submitted that this suit filed on 4th December, 2015 was within limitation as the plaintiff had